Griffin – UKI – Senior!

Last weekend we did our first UKI agility trial at the “Senior” level. This meant we got the harder level courses.

I recognize most of the people there from other trials and events but don’t really “know” many of them.  I need to get brave and ask someone to take video for us so that we have a better measurement of our progress, successes, and errors.

We saw some fun things in a trial – many ‘backside’ jumps and a threadle. Those haven’t shown up in trials for any of the other events we’ve done before. I felt fairly comfortable with all the needed skills – we just weren’t able to put everything together completely. Twice I got through the “hard” part and then didn’t give him enough information about what to do next.

The best part of our day was the snooker run. This version of the game gave us the option to potentially get 4 colors/points rather than the usual 3. Griffin and I easily got three “sevens” even with the seven point being a 3 obstacle combination.  We finished with an extra 6 seconds, we could have probably managed to get a few more points. The course was set up to fairly smoothly hit the 7’s – but we’ll still take it! I’m really happy smooth the run was.

The judge was in to judge AKC at the same facility that weekend. I enjoyed her courses, but also her enthusiasm. She was making happy comments and clapping for everyone, every run, all day. I know that when I judge 4-H I don’t always keep that enthusiasm level.  I’ll be thinking of her next time I have to judge.

The biggest downside to the event is that we can’t do UKI again until April! I’m ready for more right now. We have a list of things I wasn’t confident enough to try but also I know we’re really close to getting great qualifying runs.